


What's The Score?

by Baroness_Blixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Season 6/7, Some UST, and mulder is not, but scully is tiny, in this fic scully gets to laugh, scully plays ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 05:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/pseuds/Baroness_Blixen
Summary: After their successful baseball date, Mulder teaches Scully how to play basketball.





	What's The Score?

“Mulder?” Without turning to face her, he grins. She is here. Scully is here, at the gym. There’s a question tucked into the way she says his name. Why did you ask me to come here? 

His answer, just as inconspicuous and implicit, is to dribble the basketball in his hands twice. Then, and only then, does he turn around. There’s no matching smile on Scully’s face. Only wary contemplation. Dressed in black slacks and a nice, dark grey sweater she’s almost a mirror of the other night; the night of their first date. At least that’s how Mulder thinks of it. The night he asked her to play baseball with him.

“I know it’s not as beautiful as a baseball field, but…,” he trails off, dribbling the ball again. 

“You’re kidding.”

“When’s the last time you played b-ball, Scully?” He wiggles his eyebrows at her and throws her the ball. There’s only a moment of fear as it connects to the floor and jumps up at her. Mulder is not surprised that Scully catches the ball perfectly between her hands. He beams at her. 

“Mulder, no,” she whines but doesn’t let go of the ball, her eyes dancing between him and the basket hanging behind him. 

“Come on. Just some one on one.” She groans and dribbles the ball as if testing it out. Then, in a moment he knows he will think about a lot in the future (a lot, a lot), her tongue shoots out between her lips as she concentrates. She gets on tiptoes, aims and throws the ball with all her might. Mulder turns to watch the ball fly against the rim and plummet back to the ground, bouncing up and down a few more times. 

“Not bad,” he says and hears Scully huff. “I can teach you.”

“I know how to play basketball, Mulder.” He doesn’t doubt that – or her. That night on the baseball field, she humored him. Admitting her softball playing years after the fact with the shyest smile he’s ever seen on her, her cheeks tinged pink. This time she’s not going to pretend. This time Mulder has to up his game. 

“So you’re game?” Please say yes, he thinks. Please, please, please.

“I’m wearing high heels.”

“Take them off,” he blurts. 

“I’ll be even shorter,” she mumbles as she does. Mulder watches in fascination as the shoes and her nylons come off. She balls them up and stuffs them into her heels. “I’m ready.” Mulder nods, though he is no longer sure he is ready himself. He picks up the ball and throws it back to her. 

“You know the rules?” he asks, feeling like a giant in front of her. She’s tiny without her heels. 

“Since when do you care about the rules? I know them.” And then she sprints off. Mulder turns on his heels and can only watch as she dribbles past him as quick as a cat and jumps to score. 

She misses. 

Mulder steals the ball and dribbles around her, her swatting hand always close and yet never getting to him. She throws her whole body against him, her weight crashing into him. For a moment he loses his balance and then the ball. Who knew Scully was such a skilled player? She aims again and Mulder watches her, then the ball.

She misses. Again.

“I can teach you,” he repeats as she tries to take the ball from him. 

“Shut up, Mulder,” she says, but there’s no malice in her words. Her small body curves around him as she tackles him, her hips against his hips, and the proximity is too much for him. “I thought you had more game,” she whispers as he miscalculates once more and Scully is off with the ball. He knows she’s not going to make the shot. In his mind, he hears his coach from school yell elbows, eyes, wrist. And Scully is doing it all wrong. 

Before he can think better of it, he walks up to her and picks her up. Just like that. Scully squeals and squirms in his arms, but Mulder doesn’t even think of letting her go. 

“Dunk!” he groans against her leg, realizing how intimate his grip and the position of his face is. Maybe he should have thought about that before he picked her up. But what did Scully say earlier? He doesn’t care about the rules. He never has. 

He doesn’t see anything, only feels Scully against him, feels her weight and hears the ball slip through the net with a satisfying whoosh. “You made it!" 

"Mulder, let me down,” Scully’s voice is one constant giggle and Mulder lets her down, but he doesn’t let go. She slips down along his body, far too close and far too snug, and neither of them cares. Her face is flushed and she’s grinning from ear to ear. 

“You scored.” His own words are breathless and it has nothing to do with lifting her up or with playing basketball. It is only because Scully is in his arms and lets him hold her. 

She meets his eyes and then Mulder hears the sound he’s come to love: Scully laughs. Her laugh is unlike anything he’s ever heard before. And he doesn’t hear it nearly often enough. All his thoughts disappear as he listens and watches. If one day she asks him when he fell in love (and he hopes she’ll ask), he’ll tell her it was when he heard her laugh for the first time. 

“It’s time that you score, too,” Scully says in between hiccupping giggles and Mulder’s breath catches.

“That’s not what-”

“I mean the game, Mulder. I’m ahead of you, you know.”

“Only because I-,” he trails off when he sees her bright smile. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Sore loser,” she says with the softest pout. In a movement she couldn’t have seen coming, he lets go of her and picks up the ball. “You cheat!” she yells, her voice breaking into giggles again as he sinks the ball. 

“It’s like you said. I don’t care about the rules.”

Now they’re even.


End file.
